Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Trip North, part 2

Yup, Moose Jaw has a moose! It's by the main highway, the #1 Highway that runs across the country. I've driven by it so many times over the years before my family moved here. Never thought then that there'd be a reason to take a picture of him. By the way, someone stole his jaw a few years ago but looks like he's fine now!Every Saturday morning there's a farmers market downtown. They sell vegetables but also meats. The big freezers hold farm raised beef. Like anywhere else, you can find baked goods and home grown vegetables. It was a hot day and they were glad for the tarp over their table. These vendors are Hutterites. Hutterites live communally on huge farms. They have the best equipment available to produce the best products. The Hutterites have their own homes on the farm but they eat communally and each person has their own job. The women all dress alike with dark clothes and the polka dotted scarfs. I haven't seen a woman drive a vehicle. They always come to town with a man driving them. They have their own schools on their farms but I think they have government teachers. Not sure if it's one room or a couple of rooms for the school. When my sister talked about ordering some chickens from them, we knew they'd be well cleaned and ready for her freezer. I think she gets some in a few weeks!My sister's dining room is sewing central! We have the machines on either end of the table. The cutting table I got from Joyce is full of projects. The lower left is a table topper my sister finished just after we got here. There's no air conditioning on this floor so the fan was needed when it got quite hot. Yesterday we spent the day in Regina. Of course we went shopping, but also to renew my Mom's passport. She's only 86 but if she wants to go south to Minot or Bismarck to shop, she has to have it. I'm so glad that she feels much better after her 6 by passes a couple of years ago. Who would have thought then that she would need one again? We're thrilled! Anyway, we ended up at Applebees for lunch. Yup, they've got one up there. Also McDonalds, Burger King, Arby's and Wendys. Oh, Robin's donuts and my favorite, Tim Horton's. On the wall of the restaurant was this picture of the Canadian mounties. They began and their headquarters is in Regina. They always look so cool!Got that throw for my nephew finished. It's ready to give to him next week when I drive to Winnipeg. I kind of like the backing on it. Gnomes are an interesting contrast to the anime girls on the front! It quilted up easily. I used bamboo for the batting.My sister started this red and purple piece a year ago but we are finishing it now. Ended up backing it with a neat ice cream cone themed fabric that she had in her stash. She sometimes gets fabric from friends when they don't want something anymore and we find ways of using it! I'm going to machine quilt it for her, just stitching in the ditch. Then she's going to use the two spools of thread to stitch flower shapes in the middle of the 4 patch squares to give it a bit of added punch. We'll have to practice dropping the feed dogs and moving a scrap of fabric with batting and backing to get the motion going before she starts it on the quilt itself. I think she should hang it next to the table. That wall is empty and needs a little something to pull the room together. This would work great!We're also working on Mom's winter quilt. Had to buy an extra yard of fabric yesterday since we decided to add 4 borders around what we'd sewn. This has been a fun project. I hope to finish sewing the borders this morning and then we'll cut the backing. It's going to be the big poinsettia fabric. My sister's friend has a long arm quilting machine and will quilt it for us. Then Mom'll be ready for winter. She does get cold.

So, that's been our week. We've had some quite warm days here but yesterday was cooler and today it's not supposed to be hot. We'll get more work done that way! We're going to layer a bunch of baby tops that they've made with batting and backing and pin them. Mom's going to quilt one for each grandchild incase they ever have kids. So we'll have 3 machines going this weekend! Should be fun!